THE SWEETEST DAYS
John Hough Jr.
Pete and Jackie were high school sweethearts. Everyone expected them to marry immediately but an explosive incident tore them apart before graduation. It took years for the two to heal and finally come back together. Now, decades later, they face an uncertain future with their only child out on her own and alarming news about Jackie’s health.
Determined to stay positive, the two travel to their Cape hometown for a book signing of Pete’s debut novel. But when a disastrous encounter in the bookstore with an old classmate brings their long relationship to the breaking point, they are forced to examine their marriage and explore their deepest feelings.
A “riveting exploration of the challenges and complexities of a long, loving marriage,” says Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life. The Sweetest Days is a rich, vivid and enthralling look at the roads taken and not taken in love and life.
THE AUTHOR
John Hough Jr. grew up in Falmouth, MA, and now lives on Martha’s Vineyard. He is a graduate of Haverford College, a former VISTA volunteer, speech writer for Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, and assistant to James Reston at the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. Hough is the author of five previous novels, including Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg, winner of the American Library Association’s 2010 W. Y. Boyd Award, and three works of nonfiction.
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NIGHTS OF THE MOONLESS SKY
By N. S. Vishwanath
Scarlett O’Hara meets Ken Follett in this thriller of intrigue, self-discovery and destiny, set amid a historical period very few have written about. In Aadarshini, we have a kick-ass protagonist, with a quest that is reminiscent of the great heroes of historical fiction.
It is the sixteenth century in South India and the Vijayanagara Empire is in the throes of a succession struggle that threatens to disrupt the peace of the realm. Far away from the chaos, the splendorous estate of Madhuvana sits in relative heaven where its seventy-year-old patriarch, Rajanna, has just died. After elders decree that his widows are to perform an ancient ritual in which they would be cremated alive, the lives of three people intersect: Aadarshini, Rajanna’s 22-year-old third wife and mother of his heir; Azam Khan, Rajanna’s trusted bodyguard, left rudderless after the death of his master; and Prabhakara Swami, the enigmatic temple priest who holds the strings that control the fates of others.
When Aadarshini is thrust into a forbidding darkness, she discovers what it means to become the hero of her own story as destiny tosses her around like a straw in the wind. While events in the capital close in around her, she must seize her fate and overpower not just those who want to see her down, but also her inner demons.
THE AUTHOR
. S. Vishwanath (Vish) earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. After a career in technology development, he recalibrated his compass to pursue his long-time interests in writing, music and history. Today, he divides his time between the New York area and Mysore (a South Indian town with a splendorous history). Nights of the Moonless Sky is his first novel.
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NO MATCH FOR HER
By Travis Lee Hicks
What would you do if your child were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness?
When his 12-year-old daughter Lilli was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia two weeks before Christmas, Travis Hicks was in the worst shape of his life. Overweight and overworked, Hicks watched Lilli fight for her life against an aggressive blood cancer. Inspired by his daughter’s strength, Travis took up yoga and walking while giving up sweet tea, a blasphemous adjustment for this Southerner. After wondering, “What’s the worst that could happen if I were to start running?” Hicks ultimately became a long distance runner, shed over 40 pounds, and restored his health in time to help his daughter through the fight of her life.
No Match for Her won the 2021 Independent Press Award and IndieReader Discovery Award, and it was a finalist for both the Next Generation Indie Book Award and National Indie Excellence Award finalist.
THE AUTHOR
Travis Lee Hicks is a father, husband and long distance runner who lives with his family of five in Greensboro, NC. A Middle Georgia native with a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, Hicks practiced architecture and design for 13 years before leaving the corporate world to teach interior architecture full-time at UNC Greensboro where he leads design students in community-engaged design projects that impact the greater Piedmont-Triad region of North Carolina.
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IRINA
By Philip Warren
Irina Kwasniewska found a path from her lowly birth into Polish peasantry to the ranks of French nobility, but it was not an easy one.
In 1378 Poznan, Poland, Irina’s family disowns her when they learn she is pregnant by the son of the Jewish merchant who employs her as a servant, but she cannot turn to the Joselewicz family either. Blamed for the latest visitation of the Black Death, they have been burned alive for their faith — and their wealth. Alone in world ruled by the church and dominated by men, this young peasant girl must find a way to survive. But in saving herself, she makes unyielding enemies who will do everything possible to expose her secret … including murdering her and her unborn child. At the final accounting, how will she fare in the ledgers of heaven?
THE AUTHORS
Philip Warren is a Western New York native. He served in a US Army military intelligence program during the Vietnam Era, followed by investigative and management positions at the US Office of Personnel Management, and worked as an executive at a large national security firm. Since then, he’s served on many non-profit boards of trustees. He now lives in western Pennsylvania where he and his wife live amidst a large community of great Amish neighbors.
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LAKE ROLAND
By C. Roloson Reese
Some childhood mysteries cast long shadows. Tom O’Malley spent a lifetime trying to escape the one covering his world. His idyllic childhood with his inseparable pal, Mark, is upended when his friend mysteriously disappears one night. Mark’s whereabouts become a decades-long unsolvable question that haunts Tom’s world as he copes with and later overcomes the bitterness of a friendship’s baffling evaporation. The anguish he experiences prepares him well for a world filled with uncertainties, not the least of which includes love and redemption.
THE AUTHOR
C. Roloson Reese is a former journalist, current businessman, native Marylander, resident Floridian, amateur gardener, occasional fisherman and novice sailor.
1871: RIVERS ON FIRE
By Paul Buchheit
1871: Rivers on Fire commemorates the sesquicentennial of the deadliest fire in the recorded history of the world — on the same night as one of the most infamous destructions of a city by means of fire. The book is part historical novel, and part a love story, interweaving triumph, treachery and heartbreak. It addresses our nation’s long-held sense of exceptionalism, our treatment of minority groups, and issues related to the environment. It contemplates the enigmatic workings of the brain in its ability to create language. Finally, it reflects upon the mysteries of the spiritual and materialistic components of life.
THE AUTHOR
Paul Buchheit is both an author and an accomplished and well-known progressive journalist and writer. A staunch advocate for progressive social change for years, his work has appeared in Alternet, Common Dreams, Naked Capitalism, Nation of Change, OpEd News, Salon and Truthout among other publications. Most notably, Paul was named one of the 300 Living Peace and Justice Leaders by the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development. He was a full-time professor for Chicago City Colleges, a part-time for the Master’s Program at Northwestern University, and he created and taught a course in Economic Inequality at DePaul University. Paul’s volunteer efforts have benefited Chicago’s homeless population, and he is a strong advocate for social and economic justice.
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